Missile to the Moon

It's the present day. Well present day 1958 anyway. This film begins with a policeman on the hunt for two escaped convicts. This seems a bit unusual given the film's title. What's this? Mystery, intrigue and excitement? This bodes well. (Spoiler: it doesn't). We then cut to three guys in an office. There's a military guy, a scientist guy that looks like Vincent Price and another guy in a suit. The scientist guy and the military guy are arguing. Apparently the scientist guy has pretty much single-handedly built a rocket ship capable of flying to the moon. Why? Just for fun I guess. It's what scientists do. The military guy argues that space travel is government business, so said government is stepping in to run the project from now on. The scientist guy and suit guy aren't too happy about this as the rocket is their baby. I don't think it's said, but I think the guy in the suit has provided the funding for the project thus far.

At this point their meeting is interrupted by the sheriff who is out looking for the two escaped convicts. The sheriff asks if he can look around the premises, including where the rocket ship is located just outside. The scientist guy takes the sheriff to the electrified fence that surrounds the rocket. But what's this? The electrified fence has been turned off! I must point out here that the switch for the electrified fence is located on the outside of said fence. That doesn't seem like the most secure set up to me. Why not have the power switch located back in the office? But what do I know? Nothing, clearly.

While the scientist guy and the sheriff are outside the suit guy and the military guy continue their discussion inside. The suit guy pulls back a curtain above an instrument panel and we see the rocket ship through the window. A very poorly crafted rocket ship it must be said. It looks like someone has cut a rocket shape out of a piece of plywood and then painted it grey. It looks like that because that's what it is. And we're supposed to believe that this rocket ship is huge but is some distance away. But unfortunately it looks like what it is, namely a small model placed just the other side of the window. At this point a woman walks into the office. Apparently this is suit guy's fiancé.

We then finally meet our two escaped convict friends. And yes, they have taken refuge inside the rocket, or the lower half of the rocket to be precise. There's a ladder that leads to an upper section and we're given the impression that the two men are inside a cylindrical shaped room. They even managed to add an echo to their voices, so partial credit for that. Scientist guy starts to climb the ladder at the base of the rocket so the two convicts climb into the upper section. Scientist guy climbs up and opens the hatch to the upper section. Upon seeing the two men he shouts down to the sheriff that there's no one inside. He then shuts the hatch and climbs back down. The convicts attempt to open the hatch, but scientist guy has locked it from the other side.

Scientist guy returns later with food. And a gun. He proposes that he and the two convicts pilot the rocket to the moon, or he shoots them. The convicts, not having much of a choice, agree to his plan. So basically they attempt a take off immediately. Scientist guy starts to power up the rocket. Back in the office suit guy notices the control panel going apeshit, so he comes outside to investigate along with his fiancé. They board the bottom section of the rocket. The rocket has many switches and levers that need to be operated to execute a successful take off. None of your two levers for everything shit here. So after much lever pulling all five of them lift off into space. Here we see the obligatory footage of a V-2 missile taking off.

After take off everyone is united in the upper section of the rocket.  Gary, one of the convicts, takes a shine to suit guy's fiancé. The other convict, Lon, has Rick Astley's hair. Presumably he was convicted of stealing it. I think Gary was convicted of being an unlikable git. Gary waits until he is alone with suit guy's fiancé, which is no mean feat in a rocket, and then he throws himself at her. Predictably she's not that impressed. They then encounter a meteor shower. Scientist guy gets hit on the head by something big and heavy. As he lies bleeding he says the ship is pre-programmed to land at a particular spot on the moon and that it's imperative they land there. He hands suit guy a medallion and says that he'll need it. He then says something about public outdoor swimming pools? And then he dies. Suit guy says "He's dead" just so that we're not left in any doubt.

So eventually they successfully land on the moon, after the obligatory footage of a V-2 taking off, played backwards. They all put on space suits and venture out onto the surface of the "moon". Clearly they just shot the moon sections in a desert somewhere. In daylight. Yes, there's beautiful blue sky on the moon. And earth-like gravity too. Handy. They encounter these idiotic looking rock monsters. They're obviously just people dressed in foam rubber "rocks". And they're finding it incredibly difficult to move by the looks of it. So these foam rubber things shuffle along like old men while our friends pretend to be scared and act as if they're in some sort of imminent danger. They end up surrounded and so they decide to run into a cave (yeah, that'll work).

So anyway they fuck off into the cave and soon discover that it's full of breathable air and so remove their helmets. Suddenly they're all overcome by gas of some sort and pass out. When they come to they find themselves in a palace of some kind. A blue skinned woman appears and says "I am Lido, high ruler of our humble domain". Seriously, did the writers not know that a Lido is the name given to a public outdoor swimming pool in the UK? Obviously not. But this is a US production, so maybe they should be forgiven for that. The Lido woman is clearly blind. She says that our friends should rest and enjoy the hospitality. Suddenly a load more blue skinned young women appear carrying food and drink. One of the women offers suit guy a drink, but then she immediately runs over to the Lido when she sees the medallion around suit guy's neck. So suit guy is shown into another room to have a private conversation with the Lido.

The Lido, thinking that she is talking to scientist guy, says it's good that he has returned and he must tell her all about earth. Okay, so here's the story. Scientist guy was in fact one of the aliens, sent to earth a long time ago to discover if it would make a suitable home planet for their species. None of the others sent ever returned. The Lido woman explains that since scientist guy left for earth a lot has changed on the moon, and that they now have very little breathable atmosphere or food left. Suit guy decides to play along and give the impression that he's scientist guy. The Lido doesn't know any different because she's blind, and all the younger women were only small children when scientist guy left for earth. The Lido says that apparently Alpha, one of the young women, was betrothed to scientist guy before he left. So it looks as though suit guy's going to marry a young alien woman. I bet his fiancé will be delighted.

Meanwhile Gary has wasted no time in chatting up a young woman of his own. He sees that she's wearing diamonds and asks her about them. She says diamonds aren't rare or valuable at all on the moon and that she knows a place where there's loads of them. So that's Gary sorted and out of the way for a while. Good. He was starting to get on my tits by this point anyway. Lon has his own encounter with one of the young alien women, but this is of a far more subtle and romantic nature.

Suit guy finishes his chat with the Lido and comes to explain the situation to his fiancé. She's not best pleased when he mentions the marriage bit. Then his alien bride to be, Alpha appears. She says it's time for their marriage ceremony and then kisses him. Suit guy's fiancé sees red and tells Alpha who he really is, and then twats her one. So the two ladies then have a bit of a cat fight. Then Alpha goes to see the Lido. Alpha tells the Lido that all our friends apart from suit guy should die. She will still accept suit guy as her husband. The Lido says our friends shouldn't be killed. Alpha says the Lido has become old and weak and challenges her position as leader. Her challenge fails and so the Lido tells her to stop being such a bitch and do as she's told.

Two of the alien girls come and inform Alpha that our friends are trying to escape through the passages in the caves. Alpha decides that they should release the "dark creatures". The dark creatures turn out to be giant ass spiders of rather questionable quality. Okay, I did actually laugh out loud when I saw them (and when I saw the rock monsters too now I think about it). They have these googly eyes on the front, but they have just TWO googly eyes which makes them look ridiculous. They're also clearly just suspended on wires from above. Our friends elude these terrifying creatures but sadly they are quickly re-captured. Alpha puts suit guy under some sort of hypnotic mind control and tells him that all his earth friends should die. The Lido catches Alpha doing this and demands she speak to her alone. Alpha grabs her chance and kills the Lido by stabbing her in the back. As the new Lido she tells the other girls to prepare for an execution and a wedding too.

Alpha and suit guy are about to be married, but Alpha says suit guy's fiace won't see the ceremony as she is sentenced to die immediately. She is taken into the tunnels where the giant ass spiders live and tied to a stake. The marriage ceremony begins, and as seems to be customary in all alien ceremonies there is some weird dancing first. Lon's alien girl allows Lon and Gary to escape while the dancing is taking place. Lon and Gary find suit guy's fiancé and untie her. Lon's alien girl manages to break the mind control that Alpha has over suit guy. Suit guy then makes a run for it to join the others. Lon's alien girl decides that her race is too fucked up to survive so she sets off a bomb. This destroys the palace and the precious atmosphere, killing all of the alien women.

Our friends venture back outside and manage to dodge the rock monsters. They see Gary in the distance loaded down with diamonds. The sun is about to rise and they shout to Gary to drop the diamonds and run into the shade. But of course Gary ignores this advice and gets turned into barbecue. Lon, suit guy and his fiancé successfully make it back to the ship and blast off for home. The end.

I'll be honest, I don't know quite what to make of this film. I'm a bit torn. There are elements that are fairly competently done, such as the interior of the rocket ship for example. But then you have the awful too, like the ship's exterior, and the fact that it's broad daylight on the moon. And then there's the downright laughable, such as the rock monsters and spiders. I know it's only makeup, but credit should go to actually giving the alien women a different coloured skin, that's a nice touch. But then how did scientist guy end up looking human? And what happened to all the other men? It's all a bit of a mystery really. Still, this is probably one of those films where you shouldn't think to deeply about stuff, it's probably more enjoyable that way.

The acting is okay I guess, but I did find Gary and suit guy's fiancé to both be particularly annoying. I think the major problem with this film is quite simply the plot. It was pretty unbelievable from the outset and it just got even more so as the film went on. A more competently made film could maybe carry off a wacky plot like this, but sadly this film wasn't up to the job.

The similarities to Cat Women of the Moon can't be ignored either. A species of attractive alien women on the moon, mind control, giant ass spiders, the lure of wealth that leads to death, awful dancing, and ultimately all the alien women die. I tried to decide which was the better film, but I couldn't. However looking at IMDb I see that both films have a score of 3.5 out of 10. That's fair I think. Both films are equally awful. Bottom line is, if you've seen one of these films then you've seen them both. My advice; watch neither.

Chromecast Review

Following the recent arrival of Google's Chromecast in the UK, I decided to pick one up and see what it's like.

What is it?

Putting it simply, a Chromecast is a thing you plug into your telly that enables you to watch stuff from sites like YouTube, Netflix and BBC iPlayer on said telly. It looks like a USB memory stick and plugs directly into an HDMI socket on your tv. You then plug the supplied USB cable into the Chromecast and the other end plugs into the supplied power adaptor. Or alternatively, if your tv has a USB socket somewhere on it then you can plug into that and your Chromecast will have power. My tv has both HDMI and USB sockets on the back so I used those. This looks very neat as the Chromecast and its cable are then completely hidden. And no, you don't need to worry about the Chromecast not being able to see the remote control, because there isn't one.

How easy is it to set up?

The answer is very. So once you've plugged your Chromecast in, you switch on your tv, select the correct HDMI source and then you'll see a welcome screen instructing you to visit the Chromecast website to continue setup. You can go to the web address on your netbook or laptop, or alternatively you can download the Chromecast setup app for your smartphone. I had my netbook handy so I used that. Plus I thought there might be typing involved, which is always easier on a proper keyboard. You then download and run a small program which guides you through the setup process. It's extremely easy and your Chromecast needs very little information from you to get up and running. You basically select your wireless network, give it the password for said network, give your Chromecast a name (mine's called Colin) and you're done. Here are a series of screenshots taken from my tv and my netbook that show just how easy it is to set this thing up. Honestly, I think I was done in under two minutes:

(TV) Just visit the address given to begin setup

(PC) Download and run the small setup program

(PC) Chromecast found... just click Continue

(PC) Enter your wi-fi details and name your Chromecast

(TV) Your Chromecast will make sure it's up to date

(TV) That's it!  You're ready to cast

How easy is it to use?

Again the answer is very. There are quite a few apps and websites that support the Chromecast and the list is growing all the time. The first thing I did was fire up the BBC iPlayer app on my phone. Now in the app there's the addition of a little Chromecast icon in the top right corner. Choose something to watch, tap on the little icon and the name of your Chromecast appears. Tap on the name of your Chromecast and hey presto, you're watching iPlayer on your tv. I assume it shows the name of your Chromecast so that if you have more than one you can choose which one you want to cast to. Now I've seen quite a few reviews that have mistakenly said that your smartphone, tablet or laptop 'beams' the content to your Chromecast, but that's not how it works. Your smartphone, tablet or netbook just acts as an interface to the Chromecast.  Just think of it like a remote control. So using iPlayer and my phone as an example, I select what programme I want to watch on my phone, tell my phone I want to watch it on my Chromecast, then the Chromecast springs into life and streams that programme using my internet connection. I can continue to use my phone completely as normal. I can use the phone at any time to pause, play, adjust the volume etc. of the programme being streamed, but the stream itself is handled by the Chromecast. I hope that kind of makes sense because it's an important distinction to make. And it seems that some people who should know better appear to misunderstand the process.

Is it any good?

I think the picture and sound quality is excellent. I watched an entire episode of Top Gear with no buffering, no weird picture glitches, no drops in sound (or the sound getting out of sync with the picture).  It worked flawlessly. And it's far better quality than anything my cable box can produce. I'd go as far as to say that the quality is better than what my Roku can produce too. (By the way, I stopped using the BBC iPlayer service on my cable box years ago as the interface seems to have been designed by a monkey. And not a very smart monkey either). I tried the Netflix app next and the results were equally impressive, as were those from the YouTube app. Whatever I threw at the Chromecast, it played it without fault. I know the Chromecast is basically only a dongle, but I think the build quality is good too. It feels solid and well put together. And I love that it can sit behind my tv with no wires showing.

What about streaming movies and videos from my computer?

Yes there's a wealth of content out there on t'internet, but what if you just want to watch videos stored on your computer on your tv? Happily this is possible with the Chromecast too. I downloaded an extension for the Chrome browser called Videostream. It only supports .mp3 and .mp4 files at the moment, but I'm sure more file types will be supported soon. I just selected an Ellie Goulding (don't judge me) .mp4 video that I have saved on my netbook and voila, it started playing on my tv. Again the quality was excellent. And yes, this process actually does involve 'beaming' the content to the Chromecast because you're playing something that's saved on your computer. Because of this I thought my very low end netbook would struggle at sending the content to the Chromecast, but again it performed perfectly. Okay I thought, that's just a music video, but can it handle a whole film-length video? Happily again the answer was yes. I selected the film Blade Runner that I have saved as an .mp4 on my netbook, and again it streamed the film without any issues at all. I was seriously impressed as I hadn't expected this process to be very successful at all, certainly not with my lowly netbook. There are other apps and extensions for Chrome that will stream local content, such as Plex for example. Just go to the extensions section in Chrome, search for Chromecast and you'll find all the compatible extensions. By the way, I haven't tried the Plex web app yet as it required me to sign up for a free account and I haven't got around to doing that yet. But it's definitely on my list of things to try.
      

(PC) Using Videostream, select a .mp3 or .mp4 file to play

(TV) Quality is excellent.  Yes this is a photo of my tv screen

Is it better than a Roku?

I'm not quite sure how to answer this one. People keep comparing them, but personally I think they do slightly different things. The Roku feels a bit more like the traditional tv experience. You have a box with a remote, you have 'channels' and you have an interface on the tv. On the Chromecast there is absolutely no interface on the tv, it just shows you the content, and some very pretty pictures when it's not streaming it has to be said. With the Chromecast your mobile device is the interface. The Roku may have many more channels than the Chromecast has supported apps, but the number of apps is increasing all the time. And this is a Google product after all, so I don't think it's going away any time soon. Also the quality of some of the channels on the Roku is just dire. And I'm talking about the quality of the content here, not how good it looks. A lot of the Roku channels seem to be American-centric, religious, or American-centric religious. And to be honest that sort of content doesn't interest me in the slightest. I think in summary what I'm saying here is that the Chromecast does quality over quantity. Another plus for the Chromecast is of course the official YouTube channel, which despite promises and assurances has yet to appear on anything other than the Roku 3.

Is it worth the money?

On balance I think it is. It's 30 quid at the moment and I think that's a fair price.  It's quite a bit less than what I paid for my Roku LT at the time. Of course the Chromecast is cheaper in the US, but then their technology always is. It's 35 dollars over there, which Google tells me equates to 21 quid here. But I certainly don't begrudge paying 30 quid for my Chromecast. I think Google have probably got the price just about right. And I'm sure you'd be able to get it cheaper if you hunt around.

So you're happy then?

Yes. I've only been using the Chromecast for about a week now, but I'm pretty impressed by what it does. I have my Roku connected to my tv in the bedroom and the Chromecast is connected to the tv in the living room. So now in either room I have the option of watching online content. And to be honest that's pretty much all I do these days. Mainstream tv is so appalling that I gave up watching it quite some time ago. The only thing I switch my cable box on for these days is to watch the news and the weather before leaving for work in the mornings. It never goes on apart from that. And now I have the ability to watch Netflix, BBC iPlayer, YouTube and the like without having to switch on my PC. It's so nice to watch stuff without the continual whirr of a PC fan in the background. So yep, I'm pretty happy. There is the chance my opinion could change over time, but I'd have to say at this stage that if my Roku LT ever gives up the ghost, I'll be buying a Chromecast to replace it.

Fire Maidens of Outer Space

This film begins with a plane in flight accompanied by some crappy 1950's orchestral music. A voice over then tells us that England and America have embarked on a joint project to go "into outer space!". The guy on the plane is apparently America's top scientist who is flying over the pond to help the English boffins. Yes it's Mission Control, Surrey. The American guy lands at London airport. We know this because there's a makeshift sign that says "London Airport" placed outside a big, nondescript building. So the American guy travels to Mission Control, Surrey to meet the English bods, accompanied by the same awful music from the start.

We then cut to the "launching platform" where American guy and an English guy are having a meeting. It all looks very 1950's with both men wearing suits and the English guy smoking a pipe. The English guy's secretary takes a memo. English guy says that they'll be ready to launch within a week. Both men then perv over the secretary as she walks back up the stairs. English guy says "I wonder if the beings on Jupiter's satellite will look anything like her" and both men laugh at his amazing wit. Oh yeah, they're going to the 13th moon of Jupiter for some reason, which incidentally wasn't discovered until 1974, but whatever.

Then we see five guys including American guy sat in a room with a few dials on the wall. This apparently is supposed to be the interior of the rocket. They're not wearing space suits, but the captain is wearing a captain's hat so I'm sure they'll be fine. We then have to wait for what seems like an eternity for the thing to take off. I'm sure it was meant to build some suspense, but I was bored off my tits. One of the guys pulls a couple of levers inside the craft and the rocket takes off. Actually everything on the rocket seems to be controlled by just the same two levers - take off, navigation, landing, cigarette lighter, everything. We then see some stock footage of a rocket taking off and then some hideously bad models of the earth and the moon. They then have to dodge a meteor shower, but thankfully they do this quite successfully after a bit more lever pulling. Then we see an abomination which is supposed to be the rocket flying through space. Button Moon had more realistic effects.

Eventually they arrive at the 13th moon of Jupiter. They hear a voice over the radio. It's a man's voice saying that the ship is now under his "space control" which is WAY better than just being under his non-space control, obviously. After yet more lever pulling the guys land on the moon. They all then light up and have a congratulatory cigarette. The professor guy onboard discovers that the atmosphere of the moon is identical to that of the earth. What a stroke of luck!  It's just as well really, as they don't appear to have brought any space suits. So they venture outside in no more than short-sleeve shirts and trousers, but fortunately it's a lovely day outside.  It looks just like the English countryside. Okay, it is the English countryside. But we're supposed to believe that this is the 13th moon of Jupiter, so we'll just go with it for now.

They go for a wander and encounter a young woman being attacked by a "monster". The monster is just a guy in a body stocking and a melted gorilla mask going "Raar!". No, honestly. The guys fire their guns and scare the monster away. The woman then beckons to the guys to follow her, which they obviously do. The woman disappears behind some sort of secret door. American guy and the captain follow her, instructing the other three guys to wait outside. They're told to return to the ship if American guy and the captain haven't returned in 30 minutes.

So the American and the captain follow the girl. They end up in a palace with an old git. The old git tells them that he is the leader of "New Atlantis". He explains that when Atlantis was flooded the Atlantians bogged off into outer space and made a new home on Jupiter's moon. Now call me unadventurous and a little bit cautious if you like, but surely they could've just moved to higher ground on the earth? Fucking off into space because it rains a bit does seem a little extreme to me. Anyway, the old git goes on to say that he is the lone male survivor of Atlantis. He says that our friends must remain on the moon until they have destroyed the monster. The old git says that the woman they saved from the monster now belongs to American guy. "It's the law of Atlantis" apparently. Then a load more young women appear and give the guys booze. While the men drink, the women perform a "dance" that looks like the sort of dance a deer would do after it had been wounded by a shotgun. This dancing goes on for an agonisingly long time while the guys get more and more pissed. In fact it turns out the guys have been drugged. Meanwhile the other three guys return to the ship when the other two fail to make an appearance.

American guy comes around to find himself in a room on a bed. His newly acquired wife is there. She explains that the old git is in fact holding all the girls prisoner there. None of them can leave. American guy says he'll help her escape. Meanwhile the three guys on the ship decide to come looking for the other two. American guy's girl manages to drug the old git, but she's then captured by the other girls who say she will be sacrificed to their "Sun God". American guy's girl lies on an altar with a fire behind her, while in the foreground there is yet more terrible dancing by the other girls. The other three guys are also here as they were somehow captured and tied up. The old git comes to and staggers about a bit outside before being killed by the monster. American guy and the captain both manage to escape from their rooms. The monster comes into the room where the ritual and dancing is taking place. He growls again "Raar!" and all the girls run away screaming. The monster stands behind the altar. American guy throws a gas grenade at the monster and he falls back into the fire and dies. Although he may just be having a nice snooze, as we see the corner of the mattress he falls back onto poking out from behind the altar.

American guy rescues his girl from the altar and the other three guys are untied. American guy announces to the girls that the old git is dead. The girls proclaim American guy's girl to be their new leader. She says she's going to earth with American guy but will return soon, so she makes one of the other girls temporary leader. She says the girls can live in peace now that the old git and the monster are both dead. One of the girls says that the old git promised them husbands. American guy says she need not worry, as further expeditions will return. The girls wave goodbye to the rocket as it takes off and we hear that bloody awful music from the start again. The end.

I'm not sure I can convey in words just how dire this film is but I'll try. This film is a pile of wank. To call this a film I fear is giving it too much credit. If you were to gorge yourself on all the crappy sci-fi films ever, your resulting vomit would probably look like this. I could make a more engaging, realistic, thrilling and tense film than this using my phone and a couple of sock puppets. What were they even thinking? Did they have literally no money to make this? Because that's what it looks like. I saw the IMDb rating of 2 out of 10 before I watched this, and I thought there's no way it could be that bad. Boy was I wrong. In fact I'm not quite sure how the rating is that high. Maybe some people gave it a sympathy vote.

Needless to say there is no science in this film whatsoever. The interior of the rocket is just a room and the "moon" is the English countryside. Even the editing is pants. In some scenes we hear just the first half a second of a woman screaming and then the film is cut to another scene. The acting is awful and I'm not sure there was a script, I think they just made it up as they went along. The visuals, effects, music, script, story, acting, editing and anything else you can think of are all terrible. The only good thing about this film is the poster art, which WAY over sells it. It's not even a "so bad it's good" film. It's just bad. Please, for the love of God, I implore you, don't watch this.

Creature

The year is... Okay, so we're not actually told the year so we have no idea when this film is set. Let's assume it's the future though as we're sending manned missions to Titan. What we do know, according to the appallingly bad voice over at the start, is that there are two rival companies, one American and one German, both heavily invested in space and both vying to be number one. If you don't want to listen to the aforementioned terrible voice over, you can always mute the sound and just read the text because they are in fact EXACTLY THE SAME. Why have the voice over? Just the text would've sufficed. It's like having a bad voice over on the opening scroll in Star Wars. You just don't do it. If you're wondering what the voice is like, think of the voice that speaks the intro on The A-Team and you're pretty much there.

Anyway, so a couple of American astronauts are investigating the surface of Titan. They come across this site with strange artefacts and shit. Amongst the artefacts are these pod-like things. Okay, they're pods. Wiping away the dust from one of the pods the astronauts discover that there's an alien life-form inside. Their first instinct is to let the alien out of the pod. This is a mistake. Honestly, have these astronauts not watched any sci-fi? Everyone knows that opening the pod is a bad idea. But one of them surmises that whatever is in there has probably been dead for many centuries. Quite how he knows this I'm not sure, it's quite a big assumption to make. But then he did use the word "probably" so he's got himself covered if things go tits up. (Spoiler: Things go tits up). One of the astronaut guys sits on the pod while the other one takes a photo of him. The guy sat on the pod suddenly goes quiet. Blood spatters all over the inside of his helmet and he's dead. The other astronaut nearly makes it back in the space ship, but the returning space ship crashes into its home space station. Just before the impact the space station gets a visual of the astronaut and he doesn't look too special. It looks as though the alien thing got him too and zombified him. But at least it's useful to know that zombies are crap at flying space craft.

So the Americans assemble a team to travel to Titan and find out what the hell happened. You'll be glad to know that females are well represented in this film. There are in fact four of them. We have a doctor, a security officer who doesn't say a lot but has a big gun, a tech girl who's also the partner of the ship's captain, and Kim Wilde. With regards to male crew we have the commander who looks like Simon Cowell, a hotshot guy, and the captain who's partnered with tech girl. So our team is assembled and they have a bit of a chin-wag. Later we cut to a scene featuring Kim Wilde and hotshot guy. They're alone on an observation deck looking out into space. Kim Wilde gets all nervous about the mission and says "I'm not coming back. I can feel it". Quickly followed by "Make love to me. Please". Cue completely pointless 80's sex scene featuring cheesy music and soft focus camera.

Next we see the crew in orbit around Titan. They're looking for the landing site when they see another ship below. The ship checks out to be one of their German rivals. So they decide to land near the German craft and check things out. Sadly they have a bit of a bumpy landing due to a storm and are unable to take off again. They attempt to hail the German ship but receive no response. So they put on space suits and wander over to the German ship. The captain says that the security officer and hotshot guy should go with him into the German ship and orders the rest of the crew to wait outside. But Kim Wilde decides she's not going to leave hotshot guy so she tags on the end. They go inside and immediately split up (will these people never learn). Kim Wilde discovers one of the alien pod thingies, quickly followed by the remains of several of the crew. She runs and alerts the others. She then gets separated from the others behind a door. We see blood spurt up the glass followed by her body being dragged away. The remaining crew then discover more dead bodies and decide it's time to get back to their ship. Back onboard there's a scene with the captain and tech girl. Tech girl bursts into tears and says "I just can't believe that Susan's dead" in what is without doubt the worst acting I have ever seen.

We then cut to the security officer woman getting undressed in her quarters. Then she sees a face in the mirror. It's an old dude who grabs her and starts groping her. He says "I see you like guns. What else do you like?" in a German accent. Yes, this is an old perv who also happens to be the last surviving member of the German crew. I'm not exactly sure that's the best way to introduce yourself to fellow stranded astronauts, but never mind. So basically she kicks his ass and then takes him to see the rest of the crew. German perv admits that his crew made a terrible mistake in bringing the pod onboard his ship. He then fills the American crew in on exactly what they're up against. He says originally there were 22 German crew, now he's the sole survivor.

Next we see the undead Kim Wilde return and tempt hotshot guy outside. She strips naked and (cough) pulls off his helmet. She then starts to kiss him as he falls to the ground. Meanwhile on the ship the lack of air is starting to become an issue. German perv volunteers to go outside with security woman and remove the air tanks from his dead crew mates. German perv has another grope once they're outside. Back on the ship they receive a communication. It's from hotshot guy. He says he's on the German ship, he's checked the ship out and that it's completely safe for the others to go over. He says the ship has minor damage and that he can have it repaired and ready to go by the time the others arrive. Then we cut to German perv and security woman who find the dead German crew, only some of them appear to be members of the undead club and they attack German perv.

All the crew except for tech girl head over to the German ship. Tech girl is instructed to wait behind for German perv and security woman to return. Soon after the crew arrive on the German ship hotshot guy reveals his true zombie colours. Thankfully the commander is able to blow his head off with a gun, but sadly not before he kills the doctor woman. Back onboard the American ship, tech girl encounters zombified German perv. She manages to put on her space suit and escape, but she passes out just as she reaches the German ship. Zombie German perv picks her up and carries her onboard the ship. As the captain and commander are attending to tech girl, zombie German perv attacks them, but thankfully once again they manage to kill him.

Tech girl thinks she can wire an area of the ship to electrocute the original alien creature. Oh yeah, that finally puts in an appearance now, looking a bit like the alien from Alien, if that makes sense. Well an extremely low-budget version of it anyway. Okay, it looks like a bloke in a suit with a big alien head on top. Thankfully we don't have to look at it for long as it does indeed end up being electrocuted. Our remaining friends celebrate with 20 minutes of the film to go, which as we all know is extremely foolish. (Seriously, if these guys make it out alive they should be forced to watch A LOT of sci-fi movies). So yeah, the alien isn't dead and it ends up capturing tech girl. She ends up suspended upside down but still very much alive. Meanwhile the commander comes up with a plan to dump the alien outside by luring it to the cargo bay and opening the hatch in the floor. While he's doing this captain guy manages to rescue tech girl. The commander finds a bomb on the German ship which he plans to detonate once the alien is outside to hopefully blow it to shit. Sadly the commander gets his brain chomped by the alien, but not before arming the bomb. Captain guy then opens the hatch in the cargo bay floor and the alien and the commander are dumped outside. The alien tries to come back onboard, so the captain guy ends up fighting with the alien on the surface. The captain guy is flung clear of the alien but sadly the bomb doesn't detonate. Suddenly security woman appears with her gun and blows the alien to shit (oh yeah, I wondered what happened to her). She drags captain guy back to the ship. Captain guy, tech girl and security woman successfully blast off and head for home. The end.

This film isn't great. But then it's not utterly terrible either. IMDb currently rate it at 4.1 out of 10 and that seems like a fair score to me. A bit below average seems like a fair assessment. This is obviously a blatant, low budget Alien rip-off. But if you go into this film knowing that I don't think you'll be too underwhelmed. This is sci-fi which is more at the horror end of the spectrum, which is reflected by its 18 certificate. Although to be honest, these days you're likely to see more gore, sex and violence in an episode of Postman Pat. If this film were released today it would probably receive a 15 certificate, and be laughed at for its crappy looking effects. I don't think the sex and nudity added anything to this film at all. But then I guess if they were going for an adult audience they might as well throw some of that in too. But as I said, it was completely unnecessary and did nothing to further the plot. My summarising of the plot in this review may seem to jump about a bit, but that's because that's exactly what the film does. There are several short scenes and a lot of jump cuts, but not to the point of it becoming too annoying.

The highlight of this film for me has to be the pervy German astronaut played by the late Klaus Kinski. The character is so unbelievably creepy, I love it. He just makes your skin crawl and yet you still have some sympathy for him (well I still had sympathy for him anyway, but maybe that's because I'm a bit of a perv too). I'm not saying his acting is outstanding by any means, but in comparison to the rest of the acting dross in this film it definitely stands out.

I was glad that some of the crew made it out in the end, so in that respect the film definitely worked for me. It didn't enthral or captivate me, but then again I wasn't checking every five minutes to see if it would soon be over (I'm looking at you, Battlefield Earth). This 1985 film is definitely a film of its time. It hasn't aged terribly well, but if you'd like to see a bit of mid eighties sci-fi horror you could do a lot worse than watch this.

Battlefield Earth

I'm going to try and explain the plot of this film to you. However I may struggle in this task as there's no real plot to speak of. And what little plot there is has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese after it's been shot by ED-209 on a bad day. Okay, here goes.

So it's the year 3000, because why the hell not. It's a nice round figure. The earth has been ruled by an alien race called the Psychlos for 1000 years now. (Okay, so they're a few years late getting here). There are a few groups of humans who still live in remote areas outside of Psychlo control. The rest of the humans are enslaved by the aliens and used for manual labour. The humans living in the remote areas have reverted to being quite primitive. They live in caves, have long hair, wear loin cloths and ride around on horseback, that kind of shit.

One of these humans (our main hero guy) decides to leave his hot, brunette girlfriend and the peace and security of his little cave and go out into the world and explore for some reason. He quickly gets caught by the Psychlos and sent to their processing facility. Head of the processing facility is Psychlo John Travolta, looking like a Klingon on a bad day. Alien Travolta doesn't like this particular assignment because he hates being on earth. His superiors screw him over however and change his assignment from being a temporary one to permanent. So he's not best pleased and he hatches a plot to use the human slaves to mine for gold and buy his way off the planet. He plans to send the miners to radioactive areas which are off limits to the Psychlos as the radiation proves to be lethal to them (it's no so great for humans either, but never mind).

Alien Travolta selects our main hero friend to be foreman of the group. He sits him in front of this rapid learning machine that beams knowledge straight into his brain. Alien Travolta repeats this process several times, as our hero friend acts dumb, as if he can't understand the Psychlo language, thus making Alien Travolta think that the rapid education process doesn't work on humans. So our hero friend gains knowledge and intelligence way beyond that of any other human. Meanwhile our hero's babe girlfriend comes looking for him, and she too gets captured by the Psychlos. Our hero plans an escape, which fails. Alien Travolta learns of the romantic link between our hero and his babe girlfriend, so he fixes an exploding collar around her neck, which if remotely detonated will blow her head off. So our hero guy has to do as he's told. Alien Travolta teaches our friend how to fly one of the alien ships, and then sends him off with a group of humans to mine for gold.

Our hero friend through his rapid education has learnt about Fort Knox, so he takes half the men on a journey to find it, and hopefully a ready made supply of gold. The area around Fort Knox was apparently irradiated so the aliens wouldn't have been able to go there. The other half of the men are left behind in order to not arouse suspicion. So our human friends find the gold and load up the ship. Our hero friend also hatches a plot to destroy the protective dome over the processing plant by blowing it up with a nuclear bomb. The destruction of the dome should hopefully result in the death of all the Psychlos. But our friend is even more foresightful. He realises that as soon as the dome is destroyed, hordes of Psychlos will teleport to earth to replace those killed. So he plans to teleport himself and a second nuclear bomb back to the Psychlo's home planet and blow it to shit. However one of the other guys steps in and volunteers for the task, saying that our hero friend is too important to the success of the mission to go blowing himself up. Aww, that's sweet.

What follows is truly laughable as they travel to Fort Hood to get tooled up for the mission. So these guys that were living in caves and wearing loin cloths five minutes ago are now messing about with nuclear warheads and learning to fly Harrier jump jets (no, honestly). They return to the processing plant with the gold. Alien Travolta doesn't seem particularly bothered that the humans have apparently managed to smelt the gold into bar form. Our hero friend finds his babe girlfriend and manages to remove her exploding collar. There then follows a bad cgi battle between the Psychlo ships and Harrier jump jets. Our human friends fight the aliens and manage to explode the dome. The other guy successfully teleports to the Psychlo's home planet and nukes it to shit. Alien Travolta is about to shoot our hero friend. But before he does, he decides to detonate the collar on our hero friend's girlfriend just for good measure. But oh dear, the collar explodes and blows off the arm that alien Travolta was holding his gun in. Oopsie. So alien Travolta is captured and imprisoned in a cage surrounded by the gold bars from Fort Knox. The earth is saved and everyone lives happily ever after. Hooray! The End.

No word of a lie, this is the worst film I have ever had the misfortune to watch. It was shat out of Hollywood's bumhole and onto an unsuspecting public in 2000. And quite rightly, it tanked, never making back the millions it cost to make. Quite how anyone involved in this film managed to get work afterwards I'll never know. There's just so much wrong. Basically everything. I would say it's like a bad episode of Star Trek, but that would just be hugely insulting to Star Trek.

I really don't appreciate having loin-clothed people with long hair who live in caves in my sci-fi. That's just fiction. Where's the science? In my opinion it's just lazy and cheap film making. And okay, I'm no oil painting, but there's just something odd looking about the lead good guy. For the entirety of this film he walks around in full Keanu Reeves mode. That is to say with a permanent look of bemusement, confusion and perplexion upon his face. Maybe Travolta didn't want anyone too good looking for the lead role. Speaking of Travolta, his "acting" is totally hammy. Actually I struggled to find any acting in this film at all. At no point in this film did I feel emotionally engaged, connected or invested in any of the story or the characters. Humans died, I didn't care. Humans fought back, I didn't care. Humans were victorious, I didn't care. I just didn't care. I just wanted it to be over.

I'm not going to go through the plot holes, there's just too many of them. You can find numerous mentions of them on the interwebs if you really want to. I will just mention one though. I don't think after 1000 years you'd find any fuel in a Harrier's fuel tank, let alone have it be mechanically sound enough to fly. That's just one, but as I say there are many, many more.

Women in this film are woefully represented. There are basically two of them, one from each species. There's the aforementioned girlfriend of our hero, whose main role in this film appears to be damsel in distress. Then there's some hot alien chick with a freakishly long tongue who is apparently alien Travolta's "secretary". She appears in just one scene.

This film is based on a book by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Now I'm not going to speak of Scientologists, because apparently they can be right pissy sods, but as far as the book goes, that didn't exactly receive rave reviews either. So what we have here essentially is an abysmal film based upon a poor novel. Apparently this film is only the first half of the story, so we could've been subjected to a sequel. Mercifully the first film sucked so hard that we were spared that terrifying prospect.

This is one of those films that I genuinely feel should never have existed. Normally even in the worst films there are some redeeming qualities, but in this there is literally nothing to redeem it. It is beyond redemption. During every minute of this film I just wanted it to be over. I never want to watch this film again. Even if you paid me I don't think I could endure it again. I think we have a new low. Don't watch this.

The Dark Side of the Moon

No, this isn't the seminal 1973 progressive rock album whose audio may or may not sync up with The Wizard of Oz. Rather it's a sci-fi film from 1990, with a huge hangover from the eighties. I'm going to get it out of the way at the beginning, the story here is totally off its tits. Whoever came up with this must've written it while under the influence of something seriously mind altering, presumably while listening to the aforementioned album of the same name. Are you sitting comfortably? Well tough, I'm going to begin anyway.

It's the near future. It's always the near future. 2022 if I remember rightly. A space ship is orbiting the earth, preparing to service a nuclear weapons satellite. Okay, all pretty plausible so far I grant you. Suddenly there's a total power failure and they can't find any logical reason for it. So they find themselves adrift in space and heading towards the moon. The crew in question on this particular ship are a bunch of guys and a token woman. Why is there only ever one woman? Actually that's not strictly true in this case. The ship's computer takes the form of an android woman. A rather hot looking cat suited android woman at that called Lesli. Seriously, all computers should look like this. The most notable member of the cast here is Joe Turkel, probably better known for having his eyes squished into his head by Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so they're drifting towards the moon. The dark side of the moon to be more precise, hence the title. Then all of a sudden, flying towards them they see the space shuttle Discovery. In this film the shuttle hasn't flown for 30 years and NASA no longer exists. I think they deserve a partial credit here seeing as the shuttle is indeed now out of service. The shuttle is clearly under controlled flight and not drifting like our friends. However attempts to hail anyone on-board Discovery are unsuccessful. This is where the story breaks down a bit for me here. So our friends have encountered a space ship that's no longer in service, flown by an organisation that no longer exists and there's no response from the craft. What's the first thing our friends decide to do? That's right, they decide to dock with the bloody thing and go on-board! I know our friends are adrift, and I know the thinking here is that they can use Discovery's fuel cells to power their own ship. But even so, I would've thought that there would be a degree of caution exercised here, but no. So two of the crew go over to Discovery and find the dead body of one of the crew, with his guts open and all of his insides exposed.

It's only at this point that they decide to find out what history says actually happened to Discovery. Apparently Discovery crash landed into the ocean. Into the Bermuda Triangle to be exact. Okay, this is where it starts getting weird. So the record shows that the crew of Discovery were all recovered dead. Apart from one of course who was never recovered, our dead friend with the hole in his guts. Our friends bring the body back onto their ship to try and ascertain how he died. Again, this isn't really the smartest move. The ship's doctor can't find any logical cause of death. Aside from the big hole in his guts, he seems fine. Meanwhile another member of the crew looks at the position of Discovery's splashdown in the Bermuda Triangle compared to its current location on the dark side of the moon. He discovers that the positions match up exactly and that there's a direct triangular corridor between the Bermuda Triangle and their current location on the dark side of the moon. I told you shit was going to get weird.

Then our dead friend decides to wake up. He finds the female crew member alone. She asks him who he is and what he wants. He responds in a rather cheesy Barry White type voice that he has many names and that he's come to take what is his. A thing then comes out of his insides and pulls her face into his guts. Nice. He then says "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of my name". That's right folks, it's Satan himself. So the female crew member is still alive but unconscious. But they decide to strap her down to the bed just to be safe. Wow, that's the first sensible thing they've done. But later one of the male crew comes into the room and she's no longer strapped down. They're about to have sexytime when of course a thing comes out of her guts and into the guy.

If you haven't quite followed, the full story is now revealed. So basically God banished Satan to the dark side of the moon. But Satan being a resourceful fellow has created a corridor between the Bermuda Triangle and the moon so that he can harvest 666 human souls and get back into Heaven. I told you it was monkey balls crazy. The rest of the film is basically just the diminishing crew running around, growing increasingly suspicious of one other, and accusing one another of being Satan. At the end of the film there are two crew left, one of them being Satan. The remaining good guy instructs the nuclear weapons satellite to fire upon the ship. Boom! Everybody dies. The end. Well not quite, as in the last shot of the film we see the dark side of the moon littered with all the wrecks of the ships and planes that have disappeared in The Bermuda Triangle over the years.

There's no denying it, the story is nuts. The film itself isn't too bad. The music, hair and effects are all very eighties. This film also has one of the longest, most boring opening title sequences ever. It's just nondescript, repetitive synth music with the credits running over a background of flames. And it goes on for nearly three minutes! I guess it was supposed to create suspense, but holy crap was I bored. I think this film tried to be a bit more horror than pure sci-fi, and for me that's where it falls down. The 'horror' was just too cheesy. And I'm sorry, but I really don't need God or Satan in my sci-fi, however cool they may be. The highlight for me was the android computer woman, but that's probably because I'm a man. IMDb currently rate this at 5.2 out of 10. I think that's a fair score. This film is average. It certainly can't hold a candle its album namesake. But if you happen to have naff all else to do with your life, you could do worse that give this a watch.

Ice Planet

I'm sorry, but I don't think this is going to be a review as such. More the meanderings of a confused mind. This film was a pilot for an intended tv series. Mercifully (and quite understandably) the tv series never saw the light of day. I've watched this thing, I've read and re-read the plot on IMDb and Wikipedia and I still don't get it. This film is confusing as hell. Maybe the plot was drawn up by a committee, I don't know.

So the film takes place 30 years after a war on earth between the Union and the Consortium, whoever the hell they are. The war wipes out 10% of the earth's population. We're told this at the start of the film by a female voice over that sounds like Captain Janeway if she'd smoked 60 cigarettes a day for the last 40 years.

Then we jump to this base on Jupiter's moon Io and this alien ship comes to attack it. The base commander reminds me of The Old Man from Battlestar Galactica. In fact a lot of this film reminds me of BSG, but BSG if it had been done incredibly badly. I do feel awful having to compare this dross to the excellent BSG, but seriously, if you watch this it's the first thing that springs to mind. Anyway, the base is being blown to shit by the alien ship. Another ship appears in orbit and it turns out to be a professor guy that the base commander knows. The professor says that the commander must evacuate the base immediately and the commander agrees. So everyone on the base is evacuated to the professor's ship. And just in the nick of time, as shortly after the whole moon is destroyed.

At this point the commander and the professor get into an argument. The commander says they must return to earth, but the professor says he must carry on with his top secret mission. The professor says that the commander must trust him and gives him a set of co-ordinates. After some more bad acting the commander eventually agrees, so they travel to the co-ordinates the professor has given.

After some naff special effects that are supposed to represent being pulled through a rift in spacetime or some sort of shit like that, they end up being pulled towards an unknown planet. So they end up landing on the planet against their will. The crew has a meeting to discuss what they have been able to ascertain about the planet. It's got an atmosphere and gravity very similar to earth, but the temperature is a chilly minus 10. They don't specify whether it's degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius though. I would've thought that was an important distinction to make. Nope, they just say it's minus 10. There's also some sort of magnetic field which stops the ship from taking off again. Also they appear to be so far outside known space that they can't even calculate where they are.

The professor then explains what he knows. He starts by saying that a few years ago a meteor landed in Sumatra, and that this meteor was older than anything encountered before in the galaxy. The meteor contained a crystal, and they discovered that this crystal contained an encryption embedded in the structure. (You following so far? I started to drift off a bit here). Sadly they couldn't crack the encryption. So they contacted the professor and some months later he managed to crack the code. The message contained instructions for building a space ship, the professor's ship that they're all on now. There was also a set of co-ordinates which were the ones they just passed through. The professor goes on to admit that there was also a reference to a potential attack, so he knew in advance about the aliens blowing Io to shit. He then has a private meeting with the commander. The professor says that the threat in the message was ill defined and that they did not want to induce panic.

So they have no idea where they are and they can't take off because of the magnetic field. However their small fighters can still fly, so their hotshot pilot guy goes out to take a look. In orbit around the planet he sees a ship that looks the same as the one that blew Io to shit. The alien ship sends out some fighters and the hotshot pilot guy has to eject in his escape pod and land back on the planet somewhere. Fortunately they discover that the planet's energy field repels the alien ships and they can't get through. They locate the signal of the escape pod and send a couple of people out to fetch hotshot guy.

Meanwhile hotshot guy is walking through the snow and encounters an alien that managed to hitch a ride on his escape pod. But then two other people appear, knock the alien out and then take hotshot guy to safety. The two people sent to look for hotshot guy come across a cave and they discover the professor inside who had gone out with his own party to explore the planet. They encounter a race of people in the cave who turn out to be human, but they speak a completely unknown language. So it turns out that they've been looking after hotshot guy and they were the ones that dealt with the alien.

The commander then visits the cave to look at what the professor has found at the centre of it. In the centre is a tree-like structure made of crystal. The same crystal that was found in the meteor that landed on earth. The professor says that he analysed a microscopic sample and found it contained more information on the human race than all of the earth's computers combined. He says that he found traces of many other civilisations too. The professor speculates it may contain the knowledge of an entire galaxy, or even a universe.

Meanwhile back on the ship the alien has managed to find its way aboard and starts killing off the crew. But then the alien takes some of the crew alive and takes off with them on board one of the ship's shuttle craft, taking them back to the alien ship in orbit. Then some shit happens that I'm still not exactly sure about. But I think that basically another alien life form that lives on the planet inhabits the body of a girl on the bridge of the ship and starts speaking through her. The alien says that the planet was a peaceful haven, but then the other aliens arrived. The crystal in the meteor that landed on earth was a distress call. The alien says our friends here are the first ones that have answered. Something like that anyway. My brain was turning to mush by this point. The commander says they must return to earth and asks the alien how. The alien says they cannot go back and shows them an image of a molten, burning earth. The professor asks if the image is what is happening now or what will happen in the future, but the alien doesn't answer.

Hotshot guy asks if the alien will help them rescue the crew on the alien ship. The alien says that hotshot guy can go and a crystal door thingy appears. He walks through the crystal door and disappears, reappearing on the alien ship. Our friends on the planet then discover that power levels for the weapons on the alien ship have suddenly dropped massively. We then see that hotshot guy has turned into this ridiculous looking blue dude with long white hair, shooting energy bolts from his hands. He then holds his arms aloft and says "It is time!" in a stupid echoey voice.

Our friends on the planet below then launch all of their fighters and proceed to the alien ship in orbit. There's the usual sort of fighter-on-fighter space battle that we're used to seeing. Meanwhile a shuttle craft with the commander and a bunch of armed crew lands inside the alien ship. As they exit the shuttle craft they are surrounded by aliens. But thankfully hotshot blue dude is there to shoot energy bolts from his hands and kill them all. After that he returns to being normal hotshot guy and they all bog off back to the planet, complete with the missing crew.

Then as if that wasn't enough, the planet disappears and reappears in a completely different area of space and it's now orbited by four moons. The commander says "We're somewhere else". Bravo for that astute observation. Another crew member says "I wonder where". The dialogue in this film is amazing. Then we hear Captain Janeway's voice again. She talks about them beginning a new life. Their journey has only just begin. Blah blah, etc. etc. The end.

My brain hurts. This must be one of the most badly written sci-fi films of modern times. No wonder it never got made into a tv series. It's so disjointed and confusing. Unlike the characters in BSG, the ones in this are all rather bland and nondescript. And they're badly acted characters at that. Visually it's not great either. The outfits look like something from 1960's sci-fi, not 2003. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, this film was released on DVD in 2003. It also suffers from early 2000's cgi, which probably looked amazing at the time, but it hasn't aged well.

I didn't feel any connection to the bland characters. The story was overly complex. And the guy turning into blue ice dude is just laughable. It's a shame really, because I feel that if the story were better and not so confusing it might've been at least half decent. But whoever had the job of trying to get backing for a series never really stood a chance.

Suffice to say this isn't worth watching. IMDb currently give it a 3.9 out of 10. Yes, it really is that bad. And according to Wikipedia there was a fan site for it, but it no longer exists. Search the interwebs and you'll find people who rave about this film. Those people are wrong. I'm glad this never got made into a tv series. This film was made in Canada. Yes, Canada has given us Celine Dion, Justin Bieber and now this. Canada has a lot to answer for.